"Founding Faith" is an excellent book about an important subject: the inescapable—but manageable—intersection of religious belief and public life. With a grasp of history and an understanding of the exigencies of the moment, Waldman finds a middle ground between those who think of the Founders as apostles in powdered wigs and those who assert, equally inaccurately, that the Founders believed religion had no place in politics. Along the way he does justice not only to Madison but to John Leland and Isaac Backus, two Baptists who fought for the separation of church and state on the grounds, to borrow a phrase of Roger Williams, that the "wilderness of the world" was bad for the "garden of Christ's church."

"Great men wake up to slay dragons. Most are content to chase lizards. Therein lies the difference. Live Brave."